Supply list

Large Planting Pot

Soil

Catch up on pruning projects in early fall, but don’t toss the trimmings: use them to decorate your front porch. Garden shops are well stocked with autumn flowers to inspire you, so freshen up your flowerpots, too. The season – and the palette – are changing.

Fall is a good time to get ahead of pruning. Shrubs that grow just a little too lanky through the summer can be trimmed back now, as well as taking care of dead twigs and branches. As leaves fall from deciduous shrubs, you’ll be able to study their structure and make some judicious corrective cuts.

1. Start by gathering trimmings from your yard. A good pair of loppers is essential for pruning. The PowerGear2® 18” loppers cut through branches up to 1.5" in diameter. They’re just right for forsythia, hydrangea, lilacs, hollies, and other shrubs. Remove three or four stems with your PowerGear2® loppers. The gears dramatically reduce the effort required for each cut.

2. After you have a few sculptural branches, look for some evergreens to add to your doorstep decoration. Pine boughs work well: they will help support the branches in your container, and they stay fresh for a long time without water. PowerGear2® loppers have coated blades to cut cleanly through even sticky pine branches. In addition to pine, you could use trimmings from cedar, spruce, yew, or holly.

3. Begin filling your decorative container with three to four large stems. For dramatic effect, the branches should be about as tall as the door. Then add pine boughs to support the tall stems and fill the bucket with foliage.

4. If some of the evergreen branches are too long, trim them with PowerGear2® pruners. These hand pruners are comfortable for all kinds of pruning jobs around the garden- and just right for gathering shorter stems from large boughs. They cut through branches up to ¾” in diameter. Use plenty of evergreens in your bucket, so the display will look really lush.

5. Fall porch décor could include a bale of straw, a rustic chair or a bench, weathered wooden boxes, or galvanized tubs or watering cans. As you look around for materials, keep the scale of your front porch in mind. On the whole, larger pots, planters, and other décor will stand out nicely.

6. A big urn filled with ornamental grasses and flowers will complement your fall trimmings and add texture, color, and contrast to your design. Ornamental grasses are at their best in fall, when their foliage is lush and thick. You’ll only need one large ornamental grass plant to fill a big pot. Remove the plant from the container it was purchased in, and use your Big Grip cultivator to loosen the roots around the sides of the plant. The cultivator’s tines help pull the roots apart, encouraging them to grow out into the larger pot you’ll be planting.

7. If the roots are tightly entwined, cut down through them with the serrated blade of a Big Grip knife. You may think you’re hurting the plant, but you’re not. Root-bound plants, with a mat of roots around the sides and on the bottom of a pot, can’t absorb moisture and nutrients efficiently. Cutting the roots encourages healthy new root growth, which stimulates the whole plant.

8. Now fill the planter about half way with potting soil, scooping the soil into the planter with a trowel. Center the ornamental grass in the pot, and fill in around it with more potting soil. The Big Grip trowel has an oversized blade, so you’ll only need a few scoops.

9. Then add some fall flowers around the sides. You may find chrysanthemums and asters at your garden shop, or marigolds and colorful zinnias. Kale, Swiss chard, and other fall greens, if they are available, also look great and will thrive in fall temperatures. If you like, leave room for small ornamental pumpkins or gourds around the rim of the pots.

10. Instead of making a perfectly symmetrical arrangement on the porch, strive for balance, with a large flower pot on one side and perhaps a grouping of smaller pots — or a basket or two — on the other. Fill a basket with pinecones, and make little nests of evergreen trimmings for a decoy, a big pumpkin, a lantern, or anything else that seems to suit the season.

11. You’ll need to water the plants in pots from time to time, but in the cool fall temperatures, they’ll need less attention than summer plantings do. Your fall porch decorations will look great for months.